The UpTake: Intuit once again shows it has an eye for consumer-focused financial startups with its purchase of Check, co-founded by former Israeli fighter pilot Guy Goldstein.

I t would be hard to recognize much of the company Guy Goldstein co-founded in 2007 in the company he sold to Intuit for $360 million. What began as a tool to help the former Israeli Air Force pilot remember his passwords and usernames, Check, has grown into a mobile bill payment company with more than 10 million users.

“Mobile is a key driver of bill pay opportunities,” Goldstein said in a statement today to announce the sale. “We look forward to merging our talent, mobile mindset and spirit of innovation with Intuit.”

Shortly after launching in 2008, Goldstein noticed signs of the rise in smartphone popularity and wanted to be a part of it, according to his site. The original password product he created was one of the initial 500 apps released on the first iPhone and as a result of many users adding bills and financial accounts, Goldstein decided to specialize by centralizing access to bills and money in one place.

Before founding Check, which was originally called Pageonce, Goldstein was a captain and jet pilot in the Israeli Air Force. After serving seven years in the military, he worked at software company Mercury Interactive, based in Mountain View, Calif., where he developed products using C and C++ programming languages, according to his LinkedIn page.

At Mercury Interactive, Goldstein managed an international team of engineers that built products generating $350M in sales. In 2006 Mercury sold to Hewlett-Packard—where he led M&A and strategy for the company’s business intelligence unit—for $4.5 billion.

Goldstein has raised $47 million in venture capital funding for his Palo Alto, Calif.-based company, from Morgenthaler Ventures, Pitango Venture Capital, and others. He graduated cum laude from Tel-Aviv University with a bachelor's degree in Business and Computer Science.

Michael del Castillo is the technology and innovation reporter at Upstart Business Journal, a member of American City Business Journals. A graduate of Columbia University, his work has appeared in the New Yorker. He is also the cofounder of Literary Manhattan, a nonprofit dedicated to promoting Manhattan’s literary community and creating new ways to appreciate literature.

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